Responding to a Piece As Author

(This is taken from Writing in Context One, by Clayton Graves, published by Nelson Canada in 1989, with some personalization for my classes)

The first audience for every piece of writing is the author. The questions below will help you think and talk about pieces that you have written. You can use them by yourself, when you have finished a piece, or in an evaluation conference with your teacher.

How does the piece make you feel?

• What feelings did you have as you wrote your piece? Did your feelings change as you worked on it?
• What feelings do you have when you reread your piece?
• How do you feel about this piece compared with some others you have written?
• What are you most proud of in this piece?
• Is there any part of it you think you would do differently if you could start over?
• Do you think you learned anything new about writing that you didn't already know?

Which techniques or strategies did you try?

• Which techniques did you try out to make your piece
  • interesting for a reader?
  • easy to read?
  • attractive?
• Which parts of this piece sound most like the way you talk and think?
• Where did you really have to work hard on the words to make them say what you wanted?
• Which parts of this piece do you think look closest to what a professional author would produce?
• Which part of the piece was the easiest for you to write? Which part was the hardest? Can you tell why?
• Can you point to something you did well in this piece that you couldn't do very well before?

How well does this piece work?

• What were you trying to do in this piece?
  • Share a personal experience?
  • Provide information to the reader?
  • Give the reader a chuckle?
  • Another purpose? (What was it?)
• Have you tried to do any of these things before?
• Did you try something new in this piece to capture the reader's interest?
• Did you surprise yourself by anything you wrote?